Chapter 249 — Nine Tails
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 4 of 5
Xiao Bai fixed her gaze on that thin red mark for a long while, then a cold smile flickered at the corner of her mouth, and she began to descend slowly once more, her eyes never leaving the stone wall. Sure enough, as her figure sank lower, more anomalies revealed themselves before her eyes: the rock, which ought to have grown harder and more blue-grey the deeper it went, instead showed a slow increase in fine cracks the further down she went, while the color of the stone deepened as well, gradually turning red. The red marks multiplied, and their color grew ever darker, until at the bottom of the pit, more than ten feet down, Xiao Bai turned slowly to look—and there before her was a cliff face steeped in a vivid crimson like blood, great fissures visible everywhere, and around her the stone no longer gave off a cold breath but exuded instead a thick, pungent stench of gore.
That shocking blood-red, that dreadfulness that seemed about to devour a person whole!
Unconcealed disgust showed in Xiao Bai's eyes. With a cold snort, her form stirred, and her white figure shot skyward, flying out of the cave to alight on the ground beside the deep pit. Starlight spilled down through the night, falling once more upon her white figure like water, washing away that scene out of a nightmare.
Xiao Bai's expression was placid. She drew a deep breath, faced the night wind blowing from afar, and raised her head to the sky. After a moment, she gave a sudden cold laugh and murmured low to herself, "A thousand years, a hundred years—there are always those who don't know the height of heaven or the depth of earth, always someone determined to do something foolish. As for how it all ends, we shall see together. Heh heh heh heh..."
The cold laughter drifted softly on the night wind, carried away with it, off to some unknown corner of the world; and beneath the night sky, amid the starlight, that beautiful white figure still stood atop the mountain peaks, facing the wind, bearing a beauty of some otherworldly, breathtaking kind, standing alone and forlorn.
That deep night, it seemed, many others likewise could not sleep, as though something lingered in their hearts and stirred a vague, inexplicable feeling—people always have some sensation they cannot put into words.
Within the cave chambers of Mount Huqi, Ming Li and Master Gui were still absorbed in fathoming the star plate. They had reached a rather critical stage; with Master Gui's vast learning, he had actually managed to deduce a few of the ancient characters on the jade disc—though he had not yet penetrated the secret of the star plate, things were plainly much better than before.
And in the midst of this tension, Ming Li suddenly felt something stir in his heart. His gaze left the star plate for a moment, and he looked around; the space beside him was empty—Xiao Hui had run off somewhere to play again, or perhaps found a spot to sleep. A flicker of movement caught the corner of his eye, falling on the scroll that had been rolled into a bundle at his side. He fell silent a moment, as though something had come to mind, and a faint smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.
Yet though warm, the smile vanished quickly. He gave a slight shake of his head, as if casting aside something he ought not to be thinking of just then, and then buried himself once more in that profoundly abstruse star plate.
Elsewhere in the belly of Mount Huqi, in the silent chamber of cold ice, mist drifted gently. Bi Li still slept in quiet slumber, and at her side the Nether King sat silently.
Grizzled hair hung down from his head, a reminder that the years had grown old, and the sleeping figure beside him wrung his heart with a dull ache. On such a deep night, as on countless nights these ten years past, he had no desire for sleep.
He waited quietly, waiting for dawn, waiting for tomorrow—perhaps, when tomorrow came, everything truly would change!